1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a vegetable harvester and more particularly to a harvester for harvesting podlike fruit of low bush like plants.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The fruit of many plants is harvested by hand pickers today even though there have been numerous attempts to mechanize their harvesting. The attempts to mechanize their harvest have been unsuccessful for many different reasons. As a result, large numbers of hand pickers are required to harvest some vegetable crops. Hand harvesting is hard work that many people refuse to do. Farmers are not therefore assured of having the required number of people at the right time to harvest their crops. Hand harvesting of vegetables is generally slow, making it expensive. Crops which are harvested by hand today are often too expensive to compete with similar crops that can be harvested by machines.
Attempts to mechanize the harvesting of some crops have failed as stated above. The reasons for failures include the inability of a machine to accommodate the growing conditions, failure to separate the desired fruit from the plant, unacceptable plant damage, unacceptable fruit damage, unacceptable levels of plant and foreign material mixed with the fruit and low machine capacity or reliability.
Several different individuals have attempted over the years to make a harvester that is acceptable for harvesting podlike fruits such as peppers. These efforts have had very limited success. There were no commercially acceptable pepper harvesters before the harvester disclosed below was developed.
An object of the invention is to provide a commercially acceptable harvester for harvesting podlike fruit such as peppers growing in spaced apart rows. Another object of the invention is to provide a harvester that selectively harvests mature podlike fruits such as peppers and leaves immature fruit on the plant to grow and be harvested at a later time. A further object of the invention is to provide a harvester that separates leaves, stems and other foreign material from podlike fruit such as peppers after the fruit has been harvested. A yet further object of the invention is to provide a harvester, which harvests podlike fruit, that has a high capacity.
The harvester for harvesting podlike fruit has a head that includes at least one row unit with a pair of driven helix assemblies. Growing plants are fed into a slot between the pair of helix assemblies, as the harvester advances along a row of plants, by fingers that extend radially from a pair of generally vertical drive shafts. These fingers protrude through slots in fixed drums.
The driven helix assemblies are driven in a timed relationship relative to each other in opposite directions so that the helical bars move in an upward direction when they are closest to the base of the plants being harvested. Wheels, that roll along the ground adjacent to both sides of the row of plants being harvested support the forward ends of the helix assemblies. The rear portions of the helix assemblies are pivotally attached to the harvester for pivotal movement about a horizontal transverse axis that allows the forward end of one helix assembly to move up and down relative to the other helix assembly.
Conveyor troughs are provided on both sides of each pair of helix assemblies to catch fruit separated by the helix assemblies. Conveyors in conveyor troughs convey fruit to the rear. These conveyors deposit the fruit and other plant material in a primary elevator. A shredder can be provided to shred crop material other than fruit that is conveyed from the harvesting head.
The primary elevator conveys the fruit and other plant material up and to the rear. A stream of high velocity air passes through the fruit as it falls from the discharge end of the primary elevator. This high velocity air separates some leaves and light trash which is then directed toward the ground. Fruit and mixed plant material falls from the primary elevator onto the upper end of an inclined parallel roller cleaning bed.
The inclined parallel roller cleaning bed has a plurality of driven rollers with rubber covers. Adjustable bars above the nip between adjacent rollers holds fruit away from the nip. Plant material such as leaves and stems is pulled into the nips as the fruit moves parallel to the axis of rotation of the rollers. The plant material pulled into the nips is pulled from the fruit and discharged toward the ground. A brush beater conveys fruit from the discharge end of the cleaning bed.
A secondary elevator assembly receives fruit and any remaining plant material mixed with the fruit and elevates the fruit to a sizer. The sizer shakes the fruit and allows any remaining trash and small immature fruit to separate and fall to the ground. Cleaned mature fruit is delivered to a sorting bed by the sizer.
The sorting bed is used for hand sorting the fruit. People stand at the side of the sorting bed, visually observe the harvested and cleaned fruit and manually remove fruit that is unacceptable for any reason. Following sorting, the cleaned and sorted fruit is delivered to an elevating conveyor system. The elevating conveyor system elevates the fruit and deposits the fruit in a storage bin for temporary storage. When the bin is filled, a bin discharge conveyor system discharges the fruit into a vehicle carried container or into storage containers that can be handled mechanically.